Wilds of Wyoming
by Swellison
Summary: Becca Warren asks Sam and Dean to look into the disappearance of her cousin's boyfriend, in Jackson Wyoming. Season 1 hunt story, featuring Sam. Happy birthday, Sammy W.! ALERT: Last chapter's rating is boosted to Teen for language and violence.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Happy Sammy's Birthday to everyone! To celebrate, here's a story that's more Sam-oriented than Dean, although big brother still has plenty to say! Season 1 story, post-Hell House.

Wilds of Wyoming

by Swellison

Sam Winchester followed Dean through their motel room door, pausing to shut it as Dean dumped his mud-encrusted jacket on the closest bed and stomped into the bathroom. Sam winced as the bathroom door banged shut, then picked up Dean's lightweight jacket. Fortunately, Dean hadn't been wearing his leather jacket on this hunt; it'd been too warm. Sam had grumbled when Dean insisted that they at least wear jackets. Now, he was glad he'd listened to his older brother. Tupelo's swamp creature hadn't been a particularly dangerous hunt, but it had certainly been messy. Sam hung up Dean's jacket, then slipped his own off, noting it had about half as much Mississippi mud on it as Dean's. He probably should get a towel and clean up their coats while the mud was relatively fresh. He glanced at the bathroom door, and it opened suddenly, emitting Dean.

His older brother walked out, clad only in a towel. Dean stalked over to his duffel, unzipped it and pulled out a pair of pajama bottoms and his shaving kit. "Find us a hunt that's north of here, way north. I don't care if it's in Alaska." Then he slammed back into the bathroom.

Sam grimaced, admitting Dean might have a point. They'd been doing a southern swing of the supernatural since tackling the tulpa in Richardson, Texas. Over a month of sultry, brain-baking southern heat had taken its toll on both of them. Dean had barely noticed the themed décor in their Tupelo, Mississippi room, despite the town's moniker as the "birthplace of Elvis." The room boasted baby blue walls, and faux blue suede bedspreads. The bed, table, dressers and chairs were all painted white, and a stylized eagle design was painted on top of the dining table. Sam guessed that it was supposed to represent one of the singer's well-known white leather capes with a lavish rhinestone eagle stitched across the back. Capping off the theme, a truly tasteless Elvis portrait on black velvet hung over each queen bed.

Hauling out his laptop and placing it on the table, Sam retrieved a Coke from the room's fridge while waiting for the computer to boot up. He settled at the table and started surfing for supernatural creatures wreaking havoc in the northern half of the country.

Busy reading his latest result, Sam only vaguely noted that the bathroom door had opened and shut again.

"Find anything?" Dean, clad in his pajama bottoms, stood in front of him.

"Yeah, I think so. Ghost in Wyoming—or maybe a poltergeist. Hasn't killed anyone yet, but it's been active for the past month or so, and its destruction is accelerating. Threw a man down a stairwell and he broke an arm and a leg. No telling what'll happen next time."

"A ghost? Well, that's something. Whereabouts in Wyoming is it?"

"Casper."

Dean snorted. "A casper in Casper? Isn't that like a double negative, or something?"

"Hey, you wanna find something else? Be my guest." Sam gestured towards the laptop. "You said you wanted something north of here; well, Wyoming's north of here."

"All right, Sammy. Don't get your panties in a wad. Wyoming it is, then. We'll leave tomorrow morning."

SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN

Dean sat easily behind the wheel, smoothly driving the Impala west on I-80. It was mid-morning and they'd left Lincoln, Nebraska well over an hour ago. Lincoln had been a necessary overnight stay, a little more than halfway to Casper. As they drove, Sam had provided more information about their casper in Casper and it really sounded run-of-the mill. Dean allowed his thoughts to wander as they sped down the highway, windows rolled down to take advantage of the cooler Nebraska air—way better than Mississippi's sultry heat—with "Travelling Man" blaring even louder than usual to compensate for the open windows.

Maybe after they finished their business in Casper, they could detour to Blue Earth, pay Pastor Jim a visit. They could take a few days off; it was the middle of July, wasn't that what summer was all about, vacation? It had been almost a year since he'd seen Pastor Jim-much longer for Sam. Or at least that's what Dean assumed. He knew even after Sam and he had stopped speaking somewhere in the middle of Sam's sophomore year, that his younger brother had kept in touch with Jim. He was okay with that. Pastor Jim had been their Switzerland, neutral in his position on the silence between the Winchesters, but making it clear that that silence didn't extend to him. During the Stanford years, Jim had been ready and willing to provide Dean with information, a resting place, or just a friendly voice on the phone—whatever he needed. All he had to do was ask. Dean knew that the same hospitality would've been extended to Sam, too. He just didn't know if Sam had availed himself of those opportunities. . . Besides, there was another reason for contacting Jim. _Maybe Jim has heard from Dad, recently? We haven't heard a peep out of him since we split up in Chicago. _

Before Dean could voice his thoughts, a cell phone started ringing. It was a straightforward bell tone, not Dean's _Smoke on the Water,_ so it had to be Sam's phone. Dean watched, amused, as Sam squirmed in his seat, digging his cell phone out of his back pocket, hurriedly answering it before the ringing quit. "Hello?"

_Sam really needed to get a better ringtone_, Dean mused, _maybe He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother? _He smirked, but his grin faded at Sam's surprised, "Becca?"

After a few seconds, Sam said, "Yeah, we're on the road, heading for Wyoming, actually—"

More chatter from his phone, and then Sam said, forcefully, "Of course we'll help. What do you want us to do?" He listened some more, trapping the cell phone between his head and shoulder as he reached for a notepad and pen. Dean saw Sam start scribbling directions down, nodding, "Uh huh, okay. . . got it. Meet tonight at nine? Don't worry, we'll make it—Dean's driving. Tell your cousin we might be a few minutes late, just in case. . . Yeah, I'll keep you in the loop. Bye, Becca."

Dean waited until Sam put his cell phone away. "So, we're not going to Wyoming?"

"We're not going to Casper," Sam corrected. "We're going to Jackson, instead."

"Uh huh." Dean reached over and turned off the radio, taking his eyes off the road to glare at Sam. "Mind telling me who else is on your list? Your friends from Stanford, your friends' relatives—who else do you abandon hunts for?"

"What d'ya mean, abandon the hunt? We haven't even started. And you said it yourself, that casper's not a huge threat, anyway." He took a breath. "Dean, we're not abandoning the hunt—just detouring to Jackson, first."

Eyes and attention back on the road, Dean muttered under his breath. He thought he knew his brother inside-out: Sam the hunter, Sam the pain-in-the-ass younger brother, Sammy the reason for his existence. Dean had almost forgotten about Sam the person; he'd been determined to bury that painful conversation in Chicago deep, never mention it again. _"Man, I'd sleep for a month. Go back to school—be a person again."_

Dean felt his brother's eyes on him. "So, you gonna keep me in the loop? I'm only driving, here."

"Becca's worried about her cousin, Zephyr Warren. She's a senior at the University of Michigan, currently at the U's geology field school in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Zephyr's boyfriend disappeared on the Fourth of July, and she doesn't think the local cops are doing enough to find him. She told Becca about it and asked if she could get in touch with us." Sam shifted in his seat. "Apparently, Becca told Zephyr how vital we were in getting Zach cleared of that murder charge, back in St. Louis."

"That's freakin' terrific," Dean groaned, disliking the thought that people were talking about their hunting exploits.

"Look, Dean, the guy disappeared without rhyme or reason, just vanished without a trace. That could be something right up our alley. I told Becca we'd talk to her cousin and we're going to. Besides, we owe her."

"What? I thought you said friends don't keep score." Sam had always been loyal to his friends, though—a trait he shared with their father, although Dean sure wasn't going to mention that. "Besides, if anything, Becca owes us. We kept her brother from being falsely charged with murder." _Unlike your brother, _Dean couldn't help thinking, remembering the dead shape shifter with his name and face, now buried in St. Louis.

"And how'd we do that?" Sam rounded on him. "By exposing her to our world. Now Becca knows that the world isn't as safe as she thought it was, that evil can be hiding in the night, coiled to strike at any time. She'll never feel totally safe or carefree again. Believe me, Dean, we owe her, big time. And we're going to Jackson, to see if we can help her cousin. It's the least we can do."

"Okay, Sam." Dean caved, as they both knew he would. "Where're we supposed to meet this Zephyr chick?" After Sam rattled off the directions from his notes, Dean nodded, turned the music back up, and continued down the highway toward Wyoming.

SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN

"Just like I thought." Dean grumbled, eying the Silver Dollar Bar and Restaurant sign hung over the A-framed double door entrance.

Hand on the door handle, Sam glanced through the windshield at their designated meeting place. The bar was in the middle of an imposing two-story building with a red brick street level exterior topped by a creamy half-timbered second floor with faux dormer windows. The Wort Hotel seemed to be a cross between a Swiss chalet and an upscale bed and breakfast hotel on steroids. Sam knew what Dean was thinking: not our kind of place, at all.

Dean grimaced. "There's no way we're staying here, it's way out of our price range."

"Relax, there's a Super 8 about two miles from here—it'll only cost us an arm to stay there."

"Terrific," Dean griped.

"What d'ya expect? It's tourist season. If we wanna stay anywhere in the area, we're gonna pay premium prices."

"_Do_ we want to stay anywhere in the area?"

Sam growled. "Yes. Now we're going to meet Becca's cousin in the bar and listen to what she's got to say." He shouldered his door open and stepped outside, moving quickly from the angled parking slot to the establishment's impressive double doors. Swinging open the thick, wooden door, Sam made sure Dean was right behind him as he turned left, stepping into the bar area. The place was packed with people, sitting and standing, a blend of tourists in Wyoming t-shirts and newly purchased straw or felt cowboy hats. The natives were all in well-worn cowboy hats or gimme caps, blue jeans, short-sleeved shirts or plaid Western wear and scuffed, working cowboy boots. Sam's eyes were immediately drawn past the crowd perched on barstools to the ribbons of blue neon lighting the center ceiling. They were mounted on oak crown molding that hung over the enormous serpentine 360 degree bar in the middle of the room. He spotted a girl in her early twenties, seated on a stool with her back to the bar, following their progress across the room. Sam approached, taking in the girl's long blonde hair and welcoming blue eyes. Memories crammed his thoughts, and for a moment he saw Jess, waiting for him at the Cardinal Bar, on campus. He stopped at the girl's side, silent.

"Sam!" Dean hissed, and thwacked him on the back of his head. Sam shook his head, hearing Dean say, "You must be Becca's cousin? I'm Dean, and this is—"

"Sam Winchester. Becca emailed me your photo." The girl's voice had a slight Midwest twang to it, and Sam concentrated on the differences. Jess had never owned a sky blue t-shirt with "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may be in Utah" stamped on it in navy ink, and her eyes were more gray-blue than straightforward blue.

Sam found his tongue. "Zephyr Warren, right? Becca said you needed our help." He knew Dean had winced at hearing 'Winchester.' "Ah, could we go someplace more private to talk?" He gestured with his hands, indicating the raucous buzz of the other patrons of the bar. "It's kind of noisy here."

"Sure. I've got a table, but I didn't want to miss you in the crowds, so I've been waiting at the bar. This time of night, it's easier to get a drink at the bar, anyway. What'll you have?"

"Two draft beers, thanks." Dean answered before Sam could, then glanced at Sam. "What do you want?"

Sam huffed at Dean's always uneven sense of humor. "Very funny." He swiveled his attention back to the girl. "Beer's fine with me, too, but you don't need to pay—"

"Nonsense, Sam. It's the least I can do. Becca said you drove most of the day to get here, and I appreciate it." Zephyr beckoned the bartender, leaning over the counter to order the beers. The Winchesters noticed that the top of the bar was inlaid with rows and rows of neatly spaced silver dollar coins. Huh. The bar's name made a lot more sense now; they hadn't just co-opted the old TV-Western staple name by accident.

"C'mon, he'll bring the drinks to the table." Zephyr walked away from the bar, and Sam and Dean fell in behind, snaking their way through the tightly-packed crowd. Zephyr crossed to a round table towards the back wall, occupied by a single young brunette, dressed in jeans and a fuchsia t-shirt. "Hey, Allie, they're here—thanks so much for keeping the table for us."

"No problem, Zeph." Zephyr settled into the chair on Allie's side, and Sam and Dean took the other two.

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" Allie asked Zephyr, glancing from the Winchesters to her watch. "Otherwise, I'm taking the early van back to camp, gotta finish my homework."

"Allie, Sam and Dean are friends of my cousin Becca, from Stanford. I'll be fine."

"Okay," Allie stood up, glancing pointedly at the strangers. "The late van leaves at 10:30 and I'm telling Steve to make sure you're on it."

"I will be."

Sam caught the long-suffering patience in Zephyr's words, recognizing his own tone when Dean was being over-protective.

"Hey, can you bring my laundry back to the cabin? It's in the back of the early van."

Allie nodded, said good-bye and left the table, heading for the exit.

"Wednesday night is laundry night," Zephyr explained. "Camp Davis doesn't have laundry facilities, so we take the vans into town, do the laundry, and then hit the bars. There's not much else to do here in Jackson at night. We have Saturday nights and Sundays off, the rest of the time we're out in the field or working on homework assignments. We also have a nightly class session to go over our field experiences and get the next day's assignments." She broke off as a waitress came to the table, placing a frosted mug of beer in front of each occupant, and left a pitcher in the middle of the table.

Zephyr reached for her mug, took a swig and set it back down on the tabletop. "Sorry, I'm babbling. I get nervous and I start talkin'—can't seem to stop."

Sam swallowed his beer and set the mug down. "We appreciate the background info. Now, can you tell us about your boyfriend, Greg Ferrin?"

Zephyr paused. "What did Becca tell you about Greg?"

"Not much, just that he's gone missing. Disappeared right around the Fourth of July and you haven't seen him since."

"Yeah, that's it in a nutshell." Zephyr's eyes dropped to the table, and she fiddled with her hands.

Dean was just silently drinking, apparently content to let Sam handle the interview. Sam noticed that his older brother tended to adopt a hands-off approach when anything with a collegiate angle landed in their laps. "Becca's worried about you—that's one reason she asked us to help. We've looked into a few missing person cases, and there's usually more to the story than meets the eye." Sam hoped he was being persuasive enough to put the girl at ease. "Why don't you start at the beginning? How long have you known Greg?"

"We had the same math class as sophomores, back at the U of M—University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, but we didn't start dating until last fall." Zephyr paused for a moment. "We almost broke up at the end of May—I told Greg I needed some space.

"But then I got here for field camp, and Greg was waiting for me."

"He followed you here from Michigan?" Dean jumped into the conversation.

"No." Zephyr shook her head. "He took the job as chief cook at Camp Davis."

"Greg's not a geology student, like you are?" Sam asked, surprised.

"Greg's an engineering student, studying to be an architect. He could've had a cushy summer intern job in Detroit, working for his uncle's firm—but he turned it down to be out here, closer to me. Man does something like that, it makes a girl sit up and take notice, y'know? I took a second look, and I liked what I saw." Zephyr fished into her purse, and passed a photo across the table. "That's Greg and me," she said.

Sam studied the close-up picture of a tall young man with longish brown hair and a smile on his face, his arm wrapped around Zephyr's back, the fingers of his hand visible at her waist close to the picture's edge. They certainly seemed a happy couple. The pose reminded him of similar candid couples shots he'd had of himself and Jess, before the fire had destroyed them. Abruptly, Sam returned the photo to Zephyr. "So, when did you last see Greg?"

"At breakfast on the Fourth of July, I talked to him for a minute when I went through the cafeteria line. Ah, the students all get a hot breakfast in the morning, in the cafeteria. There are a couple of tables set up with bread, sandwich makings, fruit and sometimes cookies or brownies for dessert. After breakfast, we make our own sack lunches, catch the vans and hit the road.

"The cooking staff—Greg has three helpers working under him—cleans up the cafeteria, takes a break, and then starts dinner preparations. Dinner is served promptly at six o'clock. Greg also plans the menus, keeps track of the camp's food needs, and makes a twice-weekly run into town for groceries and supplies. Since he has to go into town regularly, he's in charge of the staff's truck. It's one of the perks of the job. The other perk is, he has his own cabin—one of the professor's cabins, which means it's heated. The student cabins only have a Franklin stove."

"So, even when they're roughing it, the profs still get the perks," Sam commented. He grinned wistfully. "That's so ivory tower."

"The professors and teaching assistants get to bring more stuff out here, too. We students are limited to one suitcase and a sleeping bag. The students are usually assigned three to a cabin—but Allie and I have a double, one benefit of having a last name near the end of the alphabet." Sam nodded in complete understanding; his last name had earned him a few breaks at Stanford, too, being assigned Zach Warren as his freshman roommate possibly the biggest one.

"Sorry, I'm getting off-track, huh? The 440 class—that's the required senior course for students pursuing a professional concentration in geology—traditionally climbs Signal Mountain, in the Grand Tetons on the Fourth of July. We learn the Western strat section—ah, the local geological formations, on the way up. I spoke to Greg on my lunch break—personal cell phone use is discouraged in the field, but the professors don't say anything if you're texting or talking during the lunch break. Greg said he had the afternoon off and was going to do some exploring."

"Exploring?" Sam echoed.

"Greg's parents were divorced when he was seven. His father's from Jackson, so he spent a lot of summers here. He likes taking a sketch pad and hiking the trails. It relaxes him. Encountering nature, he calls it. That's the last I heard from him," Zephyr ended softly.

"Did anyone else see or hear from him after that?" Sam asked.

"Marissa—she's one of the cooking staff—says she saw him leave about 1:30 that afternoon. He didn't take the truck, just walked up to the main road. I had to wait 72 hours to report him missing to the police."

"The police? What did they do?"

"The Sheriff's Department interviewed me, and Greg's staff, and a couple of professors, but they didn't get anywhere. I've been calling, asking for updates daily—I think they're sick of hearing my voice. The deputy told me Greg probably got fed up and quit. They didn't find any evidence of foul play, nothing to actively pursue in the way of leads. I told them, no, Greg's too responsible, he'd never just quit a job like that, but I don't think they believed me. They know Greg has relatives in the area. They think he's with them, lying low—and his family's covering for him. Last time I talked to Deputy Hanson, he sort of implied that maybe Greg wasn't running away from work so much as me. The deputy said Greg was last seen walking towards the road and he could've easily hitchhiked out of town."

"Deputy Dick." Dean snorted, pouring himself a fresh beer from the pitcher.

"So, did Greg seem—ah, different in any way before he disappeared? Worried, or nervous, or anything?" Sam asked.

"No. . . everything seemed ordinary. Y'gotta understand, Greg's a low-key, even-keeled kind of guy. The camp's been in session for almost a month now, so the kitchen practically runs itself."

"Is there anyone at the camp or in town who might've had a beef with Greg? Someone who didn't like him very much?" Dean chimed in on the questions.

"No! Greg gets along fine with the professors and the TAs," Zephyr explained. "All the students like him. Mr. Foster, the camp caretaker, has invited Greg up to the big house for dinner and satellite TV a few times, too. Greg's just—an all-around good guy, like the boy next door."

"So," Dean concluded sourly, "everything's all nice and normal, until your Mr. Nice Guy goes and vanishes, out of the blue."

Sam winced and glared a silent 'have some sympathy' look across the table at his brother.

"Not. . . everything," Zephyr said, uncertainly.

"Huh?"

"You asked earlier if anything different happened, and there was one thing. Greg thought that he was being followed a few times. He first told me about it maybe two weeks before he disappeared." Zephyr raised her eyes to meet theirs. "I didn't think much of it, because, well, that only happens on TV and in mystery books, y'know? Or, at least, that's what I thought."

Sam glanced at Dean-this might be something they could work with.

"Where exactly is this Camp David of yours?" Dean asked.

"Camp Davis. It's on Bryan Flatts Road, about fifteen miles south of town, off US 189."

"And which cabin did you say is Greg's?" Sam asked.

"He has the professor's cabin closest to the kitchen. When you drive up, the professor's cabins are on the left, students' on the right. The one closest to the road and the kitchen is Greg's."

"You said the vans head out at eight o'clock in the morning, and no one's there but the cooking staff after that?"

"The 440 students go then, the intro to geology and ecology classes take off a little later, but they should be gone by 8:30. The caretaker's family is on the site all the time, but we rarely see them. Are you gonna search Greg's cabin? It's not locked—none of them are. No keys. These are the original tin shacks built when the University bought the land in 1929. There's talk of a major renovation in the next few of years, but very little's changed since the camp was originally a field school for surveyors."

"Okay, then. Thanks for the info. We'll do a little digging and get back to you." Sam paused. "What's the easiest way to get in touch with you?"

Zephyr grabbed a notepad from her purse and scribbled on it. "This is my email and my cell phone number. Sorry I'm so hard to get hold of during the daytime." She glanced at her watch. "I can be at the Astoria Hot Springs, after eleven Friday night." She added something to the bottom of the page then tore it out of the notepad and handed it to Sam. "That's the address—you can't miss it." She took out a five and a couple of ones and set the bills on the table. "For the beers. Please, stay as long as you like. I need to get back to the van before Steve comes and hunts me down." She stood up, leaning over the table. "Thank you both for looking into Greg's disappearance, I really do appreciate it. See you Friday. Bye." Zephyr walked towards the bar's exit, her blue t-shirt soon lost in the multi-colored crowd.

Dean finished off his beer. "Well?"

"Well what?" Sam asked, refilling his beer. No sense in letting it go to waste, after all.

"Do you think this is our kind of case?"

"No, probably not. But the guy's missing, we're here, and somebody should be making an effort to find him. People don't just disappear, Dean. Other people stop looking for them, remember?"

Dean scowled and finished his beer. "Let's go."

"Where?"

"To another bar—a real local hangout. If we're stayin' at a motel that's gonna charge premium prices, I need to replenish our funds. This place doesn't even have a pool table. Shame, really, tourists are such great marks."

SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Wilds of Wyoming – Part 2

by Swellison

Dean drove down highway 189, watching for the intersection with Bryan Flats Road. Sam kept his eyes peeled for the turnoff onto Camp Davis Road. "There it is!" He pointed at the squat roadside marker, _University of Michigan Camp Davis Field School_, and Dean veered right.

Clumps of dust rose from the dirt road. Dean frowned, trying not to think about how dirty the underside and lower half of his baby was getting as they progressed further down the dirt road. As Zephyr had indicated, they soon saw the two clusters of tin cabins, shimmering like mirages in the strong sunlight. The professors' cabins were on the left hand side.

The students' cabins were set back from the right side of the road, arranged in three rows. Dean slowed to a halt, and Sam hopped out, promising to call when he was ready to leave. He watched Sam heading for the professor's cabin closest to the center of the complex, saw his tall figure stride up to the cabin's door, open it and disappear inside. Then he restarted the Impala, slowly following the road that had curved into a huge circular driveway, looking for a place to park close to the cafeteria, the large rectangular building now in front of him.

Dean parked and got out, heading for the cafeteria door. He knocked and then swung open the screen door. Stepping inside, he walked between two long banquet-style tables in the center of the room. "Hello? Anyone here?"

A girl in who looked about twenty came out of the kitchen proper, stepping around the food bar to join Dean in the main dining hall. She had a large white industrial-type apron covering her chest and lower body, tied over a pair of dark blue jeans and a short-sleeved heather grey shirt. Her brownish-auburn hair was covered by an unflattering, regulation hair net, and she wiped her hands off on her apron as she approached. "Can I help you?" She eyed Dean's jeans, gray t-shirt and plaid overshirt.

"Hi, I'm James Pankow." Dean extended his hand.

"Marissa Shelby."

"I'm looking for the chief cook, Greg Ferrin, is he around?"

She frowned. "What do you want with Greg?"

"I represent the Sunrise Bakery, over in Palisades. We're a small specialty shop, newly opened, and I think we'd be a perfect fit for Camp Davis' needs. I understand you go through a substantial amount of bread each week, supplying your students with their lunch sandwiches. The Sunrise Bakery would very much like to become your bakery, we can cook and deliver several loads of broad daily, bringing you a fresh supply. In addition, we can cater to any special needs your students might have-kosher bread, or wheat-germ free bread, to name a couple of options."

"That sounds like an interesting proposition, but Greg's not here."

"Oh, I'm sorry I missed him, will he be back soon?"

"No, you don't understand. He's—he's missing, we haven't seen him since the holiday."

"What? You mean, he disappeared, no warning or anything?"

"Yes, that seems to be the size of it. Although I saw him leave, it was just like any other afternoon off, he wondered down to the main road to catch a ride, maybe, or just walk over to the hiking trails. He'd done it lots of times before, nothing out of the ordinary. But this time, he didn't come back."

She shrugged and continued rattling on, "We were busy, trying to do something special for the Fourth of July supper for the students. We knew they'd be tired after climbing the mountain, and Greg planned this cool layered Fourth of July marble cake, with red, white and blue confetti in the frosting. It looked really neat when he sketched it that morning."

"Wait, you're telling me that Greg had something special to do for that night's dinner, that he was personally involved in it?"

"Greg's personally involved in all the meals we prepare, we all are."

Dean heard the girl's bristly tone, loud and clear. "But that means that he was planning on coming back!"

"Well, of course it does, what did you think he was going to do, hide out and live off the land?" Marissa scoffed. "Although he probably could, Greg's very self-sufficient."

"I heard that you were interviewed by the police. What did they ask you?"

"Just stuff about Greg's movements, when did I see him leave, did he take anything with him? Had he been in any arguments lately, did he seem nervous or worried or anything? Once I described the last time I saw Greg, it was a whole bunch of 'no' questions. And some pretty stupid ones, like did I have a thing going on with Greg. I snorted at that, told them that Greg was already taken, and he most emphatically wasn't the cheating kind."

"Already taken, anyone around here?" Maybe Dean pressed his luck too far with that question.

"You're kind of nosy, for a bakery salesman," the girl snorted.

"Sorry, just gathering some nice conversational tidbits for my next cold call. It helps to get my foot in the door, letting my customers-to-be know that I care about the community, that my finger's on its pulse."

"You sound like a water cooler gossip."

"Yeah, maybe. But the disappearance of a grown man in broad daylight—that doesn't happen very often around here. I can't help being curious. What happened to him? Did he get lost? Was he into something he shouldn't have been?"

"What's that supposed to mean, 'something he shouldn't've been?'"

"Well, the usual answer to that is drugs."

"Mister, you don't know Greg Ferrin at all. I've known him for two years, and I've never seen him so much as smoke a joint. Sure, he drank—beer and the hard stuff—but that's legal. Greg is one of the most law-abiding guys I know. Well, he did go along with the Hot Springs trips, but other than that. . . "

Dean's cell phone rang, cutting off Marissa, and he snatched it open, glancing at Sam's Cell in the caller ID window. "Hello? Yeah, okay, I'm just leaving."

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Sam closed the door and carefully surveyed the cabin's interior. It was a simple one room cabin, with two windows, no kitchen, and a Franklin stove at the back. All the furniture was nondescript—bed, desk, dresser and bookcase. A round braided wool rug in front of the bed and a radiator along one wall provided the only creature comforts in the sparse, neat as a pin cabin.

Certainly, it wouldn't take long to search the place. Sam considered where to start; the room didn't afford too many hiding places. He began with the obvious, pulling out the dresser drawers and going through their contents thoroughly.

Nothing was hidden in the socks, underwear, jeans or shirts neatly folded in the drawers. The bottom drawer was completely empty. Sam tapped the bottom and sides experimentally, even removing it to examine the joists and underside for any signs of tampering. Nothing. He methodically checked the other drawers, but came up empty there, too. He pondered the other possibilities, deciding on the desk next.

Sam walked over to the desk, opened the one shallow drawer under the desktop and browsed through the paper, stamps, and writing tools that he found inside the drawer. There was also a well-thumbed Jackson phone book from 2002 and some pins, paper clips and rubber bands. Sam absently pocketed a couple of paper clips, remembering past instances when they'd come in handy. The only other thing that the desk contained was a laptop. Sam hesitated, and then extracted it from the drawer and set it up on the desk. While waiting for it to power up, he checked the top of the desk, finding an artist's sketch pad, a textbook on architecture of the 19th Century and a couple of science fiction paperbacks.

Picking up the sketch pad, Sam flipped it open. The first page showed a couple of views of what seemed to be an abandoned log cabin, slats missing from one of the window covers, an off-kilter door left ajar, dirt and tumbleweeds sketched in right up to the one-story structure's door. An outside water pump was visible at the edge of the house, with a rough wooden horse trough underneath it. The next page showed a bird's eye view of what Sam recognized as Camp Davis, in colored pencils. The many small buildings were drawn in proportion, two different sized areas of cabins, with simple A-line roofs drawn on top of them, larger buildings in the correct places to be the cafeteria, showers and bathroom facilities, and the classroom. There was also one larger house, which must've been the caretaker's house, or the main house, as Zephyr had called it.

Turning another page, Sam saw a ground-level view of Camp Davis with several cabins in the foreground and a row of mountains carefully drawn with details like exposed streams and rock faces meticulously shown on the mountains. Then there were several more pages of precisely drawn, modern day log cabins, roomy, almost luxury-looking buildings, with decks, flower boxes and elaborately carved storm shutters around the windows. The next few pages were a couple of blue prints. After a few minutes of flipping pages back and forth, Sam worked out that the blue prints probably matched the log cabin drawings from the previous pages.

The last page was a surprise: four sketches of Zephyr, done in carefully colored in pencil, faithful to the model, her blonde hair not just colored yellow, but streaked with a few darker shades, the pattern on her long-sleeved shirt in one picture painstakingly drawn to clearly show the four different floral groupings in it. Sam could practically feel the care that the artist took in drawing these portraits. He closed the sketchbook gently. The laptop was powered up and had gone into sleep mode by now. Sam tapped the spacebar, and the screen came up with a locked user icon.

Crossing his fingers that Greg hadn't been any more security conscious than the average college kid, Sam clicked on the OK button under the icon. The screen opened, showing the default browser page. Sam quickly checked the browser history, to see if anything unusual was stored there. Quite a few sightseeing pages for the Jackson Hole area, some U of M websites dealing with engineering and architecture, and a few hiking pages were the main contents of the browser history. Taking out his notepad, Sam wrote down the URL's for the most recent entries.

Deciding that he couldn't take the time to try to crack Greg's email password, Sam did a little more surfing to see how far back in the dude's browsing history he could get. Then Sam checked the recently saved files, which yielded a bunch of photographs and a few documents on 19th Century architecture. Eventually, he logged off and put the laptop back where he found it.

Where hadn't he looked? Sam eyed the bed, a basic full-sized bed with a bedspread over it. Zephyr had said that the students only had sleeping bags for their rooms. On impulse, Sam stuck his hands under the pillows, and then felt around the pillow cases, finding nothing. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, bending over to search between the mattress and the box spring. To his surprise, he found something, his fingers encountering two small boxes. He pulled out the first box, it was a full box of bullets. The second box was the same thing, only it was opened and almost half-empty. Thoughtfully, he slipped both boxes back into their hiding place.

Sam's eyes took another sweep of the room. Very little in the way of personal belongings cluttered the place, but it was only a temporary living quarters, not meant to be as lived-in and individualized as an apartment or even a dorm room would be. In a mood to dot his I's and cross his T's, Sam walked over to the Franklin stove and opened the iron door grate in the center of the dark black iron stove. The opened door revealed a small area where past fires had left a layering of ashes. Sam hauled a pen from his pocket and poked around in the ashes, again surprised when he found a small, square box. He yanked out the box, wrapped in a double layer of sealed sandwich bags. He could easily see bright red through the two layers of plastic. Sam unzipped the sandwich bags and extracted the small red box.

Opening up the box, Sam saw an engagement ring. The ring had a brilliantly cut diamond, well over a carat, surrounded by a row of tiny red rubies. Sam's heart stuttered, because he recognized this ring. He had been seriously contemplating purchasing one just like it for Jess. Only the ring he picked out had a row of emeralds surrounding the diamond center. Sam had been taken with the symbolism of his birthstone surrounding and protecting the diamond perfection of Jessica, keeper of his heart. He was willing to bet that Greg was born, if not on the Fourth of July, sometime during the seventh month.

Sam shook himself back to the present. He eyed the ring, snapping the ring box shut. He considered re-burying it in the old stove's ashes, but wrapped it back up in the plastic wrap and stuck it in his pocket instead. He would make sure that Zephyr got the ring, but for now, it was safer with him than left in an unlocked cabin.

Sam took a last look around the cabin, deciding that he'd left behind no evidence of his visit. He pulled out his cell phone and speed dialed Dean. "I'm done. Meet you in two minutes."

SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*

Dean drove the Impala down the Double F Ranch's private road, not happy that it was another dirt road, adding another layer of dust to his baby. Seriously, Sam owed him big time for the amount of visual damage alone inflicted on his beloved wheels. Not to mention that the hunt had so far failed to materialize. If these yahoos copped to hiding Greg for some emo relationship-gone-bad reason, then he and Sam would be on the road for Casper, quicker than Sam could say "But, Dean—"

"Those two over there." Sam pointed out as they approached the clearing. "Might be our guys."

"Ya think?" Dean muttered, parking in the sparse shade of a pine tree. They got out, walking across thankfully cow paddy-free ground to join the two men standing at one end of the open field.

"Hi," Sam greeted the pair who looked roughly his age, but lacked his height by a good half-foot each.

"You lookin' for something?" one of the cowboys asked.

"Randy and Keith Ferrin?" They'd decided to play private eyes this time, so the Winchesters flashed their badges in easy synchronicity. "Your mother told us we'd find you out here." Dean said easily. "Private investigators, Tull and Hatchet. We're looking into the disappearance of your cousin, Greg Ferrin."

"Oh? Look, we've already talked to that deputy, why don't you go talk to him?"

"We prefer getting our information directly from the horse's mouth. We don't interview middle men." Dean dismissed the local authorities. "However, we do listen to their theories, and Deputy Hanson seems to think that you two are hiding something—or someone. Like your cousin, Greg Ferrin."

"Hey, we told him we've got nothing to do with that! Greg's disappeared on us, too!"

"Disappeared on you?" Sam entered the conversation. "Then you were planning on seeing him again? When?"

The younger cousin chimed in. "Hold your horses, we didn't have anything specific planned, just figured we'd see Greg again before he went back to Michigan. He has to give Randy back—" abruptly the man cut himself off.

Dean's eyes pinned the older man while Sam completed the guy's sentence, helpfully. "Give you back your gun?"

"Nothin' wrong with carrying a firearm in these parts!" The younger cowboy jumped to his brother's defense. "There's all sorts of wild animals and stuff out here. Our great-great-grandpa shot an Indian trying to steal his horses, back in the 1890's. And Greg certainly knows his way around guns. He's been a crack shot for as long as I can remember."

Dean gazed sternly at them. "I think you're in the middle of the conversation here, boys. Why don't you go back to the beginning? When did you last see Greg?"

"He called when he first got to Jackson, in mid-June." Keith started talking. "We hadn't done much more than email in the past few years, so it was kind of out of the blue when he called. He came out here to the ranch the first weekend he had off, and we. . . reminisced, I'd guess you could call it that.

"Greg was all full of plans to be an architect, went on about school and how he couldn't turn down the chance to work the summer out here. He's always been a big picture kind of guy. I knew he wouldn't settle for the simple life, even when he spent summers bumming around with us, years ago. "

Randy continued the explanation. "Y'see, Greg was all dazzled by life in the city. Not even all the summers running around here in God's country could turn his thinking around. He's got Wyoming running through his blood as much as we do, but he didn't get it."

"Didn't get what?" Dean asked.

"I know you look at us and see two hicks in a small town, but I can walk into any bar in Jackson and meet a girl from halfway across the world. I don't have to go out to see the world, it comes to us, so we've got the best of both worlds. Awesome skiing, too."

Sam brought the conversation back to the topic at hand. "So, why did Greg borrow your gun?"

"He asked if he could have one of mine, the second time he came out here. Not sure why, I thought it was to practice for the County Fair shooting rally, really. Greg's won it before. He doesn't have a gun back East, they're not so Pro-Second Amendment in Michigan, I guess."

Dean let his impatience color his question. "So, are you yahoos hiding Greg out on your spread?"

"No!" both Ferrins denied, sincerely. "Look, maybe we let Deputy Hanson draw his own conclusions, but we only told him the truth."

"Deputy Hanson's had it in for us since Randy's senior year, anyway."

"Oh? Why is that?" Sam asked.

"I got a little creative with my history project." Randy admitted. "We were supposed to do something that captured the pioneer's lifestyle. I chose the cowboy's life, and re-enacted cattle rustling. I kept it authentic, used horses, not trucks, and we taped it." He paused as if considering his next words. "Using Dad's herd didn't seem real enough, so I er, borrowed ten head of the Rollicking R's cattle—our nearest neighbor. Kind of forgot to ask his permission first, though."

"Deputy Hanson almost arrested Randy for cattle theft," Keith ended the tale. "Dad got him out of it, but Hanson's real quick to lay blame on us for anything that's happened, ever since."

"Neither one of us have seen Greg since the Tuesday before he vanished." Randy brought the conversation back to the present. "He didn't say anything about buggin' out, either. Came out here to borrow my revolver—did a little shooting, to make sure the gun was up to snuff." Randy motioned towards a twenty foot log lying on the ground at the other side of the clearing, four beer bottles standing in a staggered row along its top, gaps indicating where other bottles had been shot off the log.

Dean glanced from the log back to the Ferrins. "May I?" He slowly withdrew his Desert Eagle from where it was tucked into his waist and waited for Keith's nod before he clicked the safety off, sited and squeezed off four shots, breaking a bottle with every bullet.

"Nice shooting," Sam commented.

Dean wasn't interested in Sam's reaction, though; he was hoping he might've rattled Keith or Randy into spilling the beans, if they hadn't been telling the truth so far.

"Wow!" Keith looked at Dean with new respect. "Maybe you should enter the County Fair's shooting rally, mister."

To be continued


	3. Chapter 3

Wilds of Wyoming – Part 3

by Swellison

"Are you sure she said . . . ?" Dean let the sentence end, staring at the ground in front of them as they stealthily progressed down the narrow path.

"You heard her. Eleven Friday night at the Astoria Hot Springs—and we're here." Sam stopped by a large rock. They could hear the faint sounds of voices and splashing from somewhere in beyond the rock.

"College students are crazy," Dean pronounced, gazing past the rock to see neat piles of shirts, jeans and boots along the edge of a fairly wide hot spring about twenty feet in front of them He turned and watched as Sam unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. Freakin' hell, was craziness catching? "What're you doing?" he hissed as Sam slipped his t-shirt over his head and laid it on the rock top.

"What's it look like?" Sam's eyebrows rose, and he shrugged. "When in Rome. . . " He glowered at Dean, and Dean met his gaze in defiant, fully-clothed form.

"Sam . . . I don't do shorts; I sure as hell don't do briefs. Or boxers," he added as Sam placed his jeans on the rock top, exposing his blue briefs.

"Prude!" Sam teased, and stepped around the rock, padding away to join the students in the naturally heated thermal spring.

The crisp night air allowed sound to travel farther than usual. Dean heard the splashes and voices halt abruptly as the skinny-dippers must've caught site of Sam. He'd look plenty imposing, especially to anyone lying in the hot springs, gazing up and up.

"Sam!" Dean heard a girl's voice—had to be Zephyr's—break the silence. "Over here."

Dean heard footsteps enter the water, and then a sort of flapping splash as Sam presumably joined Zephyr, seated in the water. He vaguely heard the girl ask a question, and clearly heard Sam's "Dean's—shy. He's keeping watch, though."

Dean heard the girl's indistinguishable murmur, and then Sam's somewhat strained voice, "Whack—lick—look?"

Dean almost rose from his crouch behind the rock, but the next thing he heard was Sam's unfettered laughter. He listened to it; it had been a long time since he'd heard Sam laugh like that. Sam had a really enjoyable laugh, when he got going, it was almost infectious. Dean had teased Sammy more than once growing up that Sam should sell his voice to the TV sitcom's soundtrack engineers-make some money. The last time Sam had sounded remotely that happy was in Richardson, after he'd superglued Dean's hand to that beer bottle, the sneaky bastard. In retrospect, it had been worth the lost layers of skin to hear Sam's laugh—not that Dean would admit that aloud, ever.

SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*

Sam settled next to Zephyr, trying to minimize the splashing he made as he sat down in the shallow, exceedingly warm spring water. He was thankful that he'd taken the time to check out Astoria Hot Springs on the web, so he knew what to expect. A shame he couldn't persuade Dean to join them, but Dean was stubbornly against the idea, and once his big brother's mind was made up, it stayed made up. Once, Sammy could wheedle Dean into doing his bidding, but he'd been reluctant to play his trump card—his puppy dog eyes—too often, he'd already expended some of his capital just to get Dean to come to Jackson. He decided not to push his luck. It was just another example of how college stuff sent Dean into out-of-the-ordinary retreat mode.

This wasn't getting him any further with the case, though, Sam thought as he listened to Zephyr. "But, I thought Dean was with you. Where is he?"

"Dean's—shy," Sam fibbed outrageously, assured that the girl didn't know them well enough to catch the lie. "He's keeping watch, though." Curiosity got the better of him, and looking at the dozen or so students lounging in the hot springs, he asked, "Ah, you do know it's after hours and the hot springs' closed, right?"

Zephyr laughed softly. "No trespassing signs don't apply to geologists, that's the first thing you learn at field school. Although we're usually crawling under barbed wire, dodging sagebrush in the process. Slipping through Astoria's gate posts is mild by comparison. The second thing we learn is whack, lick look."

"Whack—lick—look!" Sam repeated more loudly than he intended and shook his head, he must've heard that incorrectly.

"Yes, Professor Sudbury's favorite saying and SOP in the field when examining a rock –whack a sample off with your geo hammer, lick the exposed surface and look at the rock's color, crystal size and composition with a magnifying lens." Zephyr grinned slyly. "Catchy phrase, don't you think?"

Sam laughed. "It certainly got my attention." Sam's voice was back in the lowered half-whispered tones they'd been using, to keep the conversation private. At least a dozen of Zephyr's colleagues were within yards of them, sharing the hot spring's therapeutic waters and talking in small clusters.

"About the hot springs—U of M geo students have been coming here after hours for decades. It's sort of an unwritten tradition and a great way to relax after a long, hard week in the field." Zephyr stretched, and Sam saw her pink bra shifting as she put her arms out to her sides, laying them lightly on top of the water. She wriggled her fingers, letting the warm water flow over them. "In the early days, the students drove here using one of the vans, but the powers that be frowned on using official U of M vehicles for these nocturnal hi-jinks, so the cook's truck has been the chief mode of transportation for years. Everyone piles into the back of the truck and luckily it's a short ride. Greg always says—" she broke off, swallowed. "Sorry, I keep expecting to wake up and have this be a bad dream, or something, y'know? Anyway, Marissa drove us here tonight. Have you found out anything, about Greg?"

"Nothing solid. Dean interviewed the kitchen staff, and I checked out Greg's cabin. We talked to Greg's cousins—Randy and Keith Ferrin, and they claim to know nothing about his disappearance. They have been in touch with Greg, and Greg borrowed a gun from Randy. Did you know anything about that?"

"Uh, yeah. Greg told me about his cousins shortly after I got here. And he told me about the gun, eventually. He was kind of twitchy about being followed. That's why he borrowed the gun."

Zephyr stared into Sam's face for a few seconds, the way Jess used to look when she was making an important decision. Zephyr's hands reached for her braid, loosening it carefully. "I had to do something to keep my hair out of my eyes in the field. The first week, I wore pigtails. I looked about twelve, so Allie suggested a central, braided ponytail. It keeps my hair out of my face and I've been wearing it that way ever since."

She lowered her hands from her hair that now fell freely about her shoulders. Sam noticed that Zephyr's right hand was curled into a loose fist. "I. . . haven't been entirely honest with you, Sam. Greg gave me something, for safekeeping, the last evening we spent together. This." She held out her hand to Sam, open palm revealing a small bundle, rolled up in saran wrap.

Sam took the object and unwrapped it. He blinked at the small piece of antler. "Is that—?"

Zephyr nodded her head. "I know it sounds crazy, but Greg told me that he shot that off of a jackelope."

"A jackelope?" Sam swallowed, trying to wrap his mind around this new element in the case. Sure, he was used to dealing with the unbelievable, the supernatural, but—a jackelope?

"Greg was out hiking, and he felt someone staring at him—said it was becoming a familiar feeling, he just _knew_ that someone was watching him. So, he pulled the gun and confronted—a jackelope. He shot at it instinctively, and it bolted away. He searched the area where the creature had been standing and found that, on the ground.

"I haven't told anyone else about this, but Becca said you guys are very open-minded. I don't know how, but I figure this has got to be connected with Greg's disappearance, somehow and you need to know about it. I mean, it can't be just a coincidence, right?"

"Stranger things have happened," Sam said slowly, "but you're right, a coincidence would be highly unlikely. Can I keep this for a few days?"

"By all means. I've been gettin' a little paranoid hiding it lately. I'm starting to feel like someone's watching me."

"What? Where were you when that happened? And what time of day was it?"

"Nowhere in particular. Yesterday, we were out in Red Rock Canyon, mapping the formations and I had this weird sensation that someone was watching me. It almost gave me goosebumps. I spun around and looked, but no one was there. Just my imagination running away with me, I suppose."

"Maybe." Sam frowned. "Do me a favor and don't wander around alone, all right? Make sure that Allie or one of your other friends is in sight when you're out in the field. Just as a precaution," Sam assured Zephyr.

"Okay." Zephyr glanced at her waterproof watch and said, "We need to be getting back to camp."

At her words, Sam heard an increase in splashing as the skinny-dippers reluctantly made their way back to the shoreline and began slipping into their clothes.

Zephyr stood up and Sam also rose to his feet.

"Thanks again for meeting me, Sam. I emailed you some pictures of the camp and the surrounding area, just in case it's useful."

"Thanks, I'll check them out."

"We're doing a road trip down to Utah for a couple of days next week, so I may be even harder to get hold of than usual." Zephyr said as Sam politely turned his back and she pulled on her jeans and t-shirt over her slightly damp bra and underwear. "Bye, Sam."

SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*

Dean waited until they were safely ensconced in the Impala before he spoke. Keys in hand, he turned to Sam and asked, "So, what did Zephyr have to say?"

"She knew that Greg borrowed a gun, for protection. And she gave me something."

"What?" Dean's eyebrows arched up. "A hickey?"

"Wha—? No, this!" Sam pushed the antler, minus its saran wrap, into Dean's hand.

After a cursory look, Dean questioned. "A piece of antler?"

"It's not from a deer," Sam said, his tone almost challenging.

"Too small to be elk." Dean eyed the antler. "Way too small." He ran his finger over the two fine points on the hard chunk of antler, one on the end and one a little over an inch lower. Dean handed the antler back to Sam and tapped the steering wheel with his left hand. "I'm not in the mood for twenty questions, dude. What's so all-fired important about this antler that your girlfriend had to give it to you at a hot springs rendezvous in the middle of the night?"

"She's not my girlfriend!" Sam denied, shaking his head. "Greg gave this to Zephyr, the last time she saw him." He took a deep breath. "She said he told her he shot it off of a jackelope."

"And you believed her?"

"We've been lookin' for something strange about Greg. This—" Sam shook his hand still holding the antler, "is strange."

"Yeah," Dean snorted, "but our kind of strange, not loony-bins abducted by aliens strange."

"Dammit, I knew I shouldn't have said anything about the antler tonight. Let's just leave this for now, and pick it up again in the morning. I'm beat."

Dean almost started arguing, letting Sam know in no uncertain terms that he shouldn't even consider withholding information from him about a hunt, ever. "Fine." he said, tight-lipped.

"Fine."

SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*

Sam woke the next morning to an empty room. He'd gotten used to sleeping through his roommate's early morning risings at Stanford, when first Zach and later Jess had had earlier classes than his. But he usually rose before Dean; his brother was emphatically not an early riser. However, Dean knew how to catfoot around a room, be quiet as a mouse when the occasion warranted. Like if he was avoiding something. Sam winced, remembered they'd barely said two words to each other after getting back from the hot springs last night.

Noticing a folded piece of paper lying on the nightstand between the two queen-sized beds, Sam reached over and opened it. "Decided to look at this with fresh feet. I'll be back with lunch. Go get your geek on. Dean."

Brief and to the point –so Dean.

Sam rolled out of bed and into the bathroom, letting his mind dwell on the case while he showered. The pounding rush of hot water had always helped when he was stumped on a term paper in college. He brushed his teeth, dressed and hauled out the laptop, placing it on the light pine dining table towards the back of the room, underneath its one window.

Sam microwaved a bowl of instant oatmeal while waiting for the laptop to connect. Pushingthe colorful heavy curtain patterned to resemble Indian beadwork aside, Sam peered out the window to confirm the empty space in the parking lot below. Dean had taken the Impala, so his research would have to be conducted from the motel room. Fortunately, the Super 8's amenities, in addition to the microwave, mini-fridge, and substantial light pine furniture, included free internet access.

Sam considered where to start as he opened his search page and stared at the advanced search space. Finally he placed the antler on the table and typed in antler measurements and growth, determined to prove that what he said to Dean last night was true; their specimen wasn't a deer antler. He started flipping through the page results, clicking on the most promising-sounding matches. After perusing a few sites, he stood up and retrieved his notepad and a pen, sat back down and started taking notes.

Hours later, Sam's researching was interrupted by the creak of the door opening. He peered over the top of his screen to see Dean enter, a plastic bag of fast food dangling from his arm as he closed the door quickly behind him. Their room was on the third floor, and Sam knew the interior room entrance put his big brother on edge. Dean much preferred an unhindered, street-level exit. Dean had taken one look at the low-slung split rail fence and painted half- wagon wheels strategically placed at the Super 8 hotel's covered driveway entrance and snorted. "Tourist trap."

"I brought lunch," Dean said as he crossed to the back of their narrow room. The off-white walls could only do so much to create the illusion of airiness and space.

"I see that," Sam answered, watching as Dean plopped the bag on the other side of the table.

Dean extracted a wrapped package. "Southwest chicken salad, thought you'd eat that."

Sam pushed the laptop to the side, reaching across for the salad, in a covered black plastic bowl. "Thanks." He recognized it for the olive branch it was. Sam glanced at his watch, surprised to note that it was almost one. Definitely lunchtime.

Dean grabbed a bacon double cheeseburger and large order of curly fries from the bag, before crushing it into a ball and tossing it into the wastebasket underneath the free-standing coat rack on the adjacent wall.

"So." Sam snapped the lid off his salad and opened the package of salad dressing, squeezing it to dribble over the lettuce, chicken, cheese, tortilla chips and assorted vegetables. "How'd your morning go?"

"I talked to Deputy Hanson. He really is a dick, or close enough. He's firmly of the opinion that Greg just got sick of his job and quit—he's not really missing at all, more like a runaway. But Hanson figures Ferrin's a legal adult and, even if he did run away, it's not a crime.

"Then I went over to the visitor's bureau and asked about any abandoned ranch houses in the area. I remembered that you'd found a few sketches of abandoned ranches in Greg's sketch book, thought maybe he was using one of them as a hideout. I told Cynthia—the girl at the visitor's center—that I was looking for picturesque abandoned old homesteads to photograph. She was very helpful, gave me a map with a few locations to check out."

Dean grimaced. "More dirt roads, but all the sites were long abandoned; no one's been living there for the past fifty years, at least. No sign of Greg or evidence that anyone's been anywhere near those places, other than a few photographers. Then I drove back to town and got lunch. So, how's your research going?"

"I'm making some progress." Sam munched on a forkful of salad. "For one thing, I know way more about antlers than I ever thought I would. Did you know that the July moon is referred to as the full buck's moon, because the bucks' antlers are very prominent, halfway through their growing season? Since they're still growing, they are also coated in velvet, which is really a soft, protective skin that supplies blood and nutrition to the deer's growing antlers." Sam didn't need to remind Dean that their piece of antler was entirely velvet-free, further proof that it wasn't from a deer.

"Huh," Dean mumbled around a mouthful of bacon double cheeseburger.

Sam pondered their lack of progress. "If it was any other hunt, what would we do?" he asked himself, not realizing that he'd spoken the words aloud.

"We'd find out the history of the hou—" Dean broke off, and Sam couldn't tell if Dean also caught the echo of their conversation in Lawrence, back when they were investigating their childhood home, or not. Frustration colored Dean's next words. "But we don't even know where Greg disappeared from, dammit!"

"Does it even matter? This is Wyoming, chock full of ghosts of the Old West. Cowboys and Indians. Indians—now, that's something I haven't looked into, yet. "

Sam hastily finished his salad, and then drew the laptop back in front of him. After a quick search, he said, "Native Indians in this region are mainly the Arapaho, Blackfeet and Gros Ventres tribes." Sam flipped through a few sites as Dean chewed on his curly fries. "Arapaho seems like the most prevalent tribe in Jackson. I found the Jackson Historical Society's site, which tells about the founding days of Jackson. Town was named after—"

Sam glanced up and caught Dean in mid-eye roll. "Never mind, that's not important. There's a link to a couple of tribal information sites, though."

Sam was vaguely aware of Dean finishing his sandwich and bussing the table as he continued his online searching. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dean pick up the antler and slip it into his pocket. Dean dumped the trash in the wastebasket and then walked over to Sam's side of the table, peering over his shoulder as Sam skimmed through the information on the page. "Listen to this! _One of the most colorful leaders of the Arapaho tribe was Yellow Beaver, a fierce warrior who was also the tribe's medicine man, or shaman. He was vehemently opposed to the US Army's resettlement program, and attempted to thwart and circumvent it whenever he could. Tragically, he was killed during a raid on a local ranch, attempting to acquire horses for his tribe. His early death left a gap in the Arapaho's leadership, and the tribe suffered significant setbacks dating from Yellow Beaver's death in 1895_."

"Shaman, huh?" Dean mused. "Y'think maybe he was a skinwalker?"

"Skinwalkers are more common in the Navaho and Nez Pierce tribes, further south of here. Besides, skinwalkers usually appear as larger animals, don't they? Closer to human-size like mountain lions, wolves or even bears."

"Okay, so not a skinwalker. How about your basic, garden variety pissed-off Indian spirit, then?" Dean asked. "The Indian chose the unlikely form of a mythical creature—a jackelope—to spy on his white man enemies. A neat choice, really, because who's gonna admit that they saw a jackelope? They'd be the laughingstock of the town."

The laptop emitted its 'you've got mail' tone and Sam idly flicked open another window, to scan his mailbox. The new post was from Zephyr, with an attachment, and Sam remembered the promised photos. He opened up the attached file, and flicked through a few photos, stopping at one showing neat rows of tin cabins with a picture-perfect mountain backdrop. "Camp Davis under the shadow of Beaver Mountain" was Zephyr's caption. Sam suddenly tapped the screen, tracing the sideways image of a beaver, carved into the mountain by centuries of roaring streams, giving the mountain its name. "Beaver Mountain, overlooking Camp Davis. One of the drawings in Greg's sketchbook was a bird's eye view of the camp, what d'ya wanna bet it was from Beaver Mountain? It's been staring us in the face all along."

"What d'ya wanna bet we found Yellow Beaver's Happy Hunting Grounds?" Dean countered.

"What did Keith Ferrin say? _Our great-great grandpa killed an Indian trying to steal his horses_?"

"Back in the 1890's. Yellow Beaver died in 1895. And Keith's great-great grandpa would be Greg Ferrin's ancestor, too."

Sam turned his head to face Dean squarely. "Dude, we need to check out Beaver Mountain," they said simultaneously.

To Be Continued


	4. Chapter 4

Wilds of Wyoming – Part 4

by Swellison

Dean watched as Sam nimbly stepped along the darkened trail. They had spent some time researching the hiking trails on Beaver Mountain, discussing the likeliest places to start their hunt. Unfortunately, the sideways beaver shape covered almost the entire height of Beaver Mountain, leaving a lot of ground to be explored, with more than a 3000 foot difference between the top and bottom of the mountain. Sam had reasoned that Greg had to have been exploring the bottom half of the mountain. Zephyr had mentioned hiking, not climbing, and was certain Greg had taken no specialized climbing gear with him on his hikes, only his backpack and sketchpad.

The summer sun didn't fade until almost ten, so they had started their hike in daylight, if after hours. Dean had been grateful for his leather jacket as the temperature had dropped rapidly after the sun disappeared. Sam had checked the forecast—a nighttime low of forty degrees—and had bundled up in his light brown jacket, adding a pair of driving gloves after checking the expected wind chill. At first, they'd kept close to the trail, breaking off to examine likely cleared areas, seeking a spot that overlooked Camp Davis. If they could locate the place where Greg had drawn that bird's eye view of the Camp, it might also be where he'd encountered the jackelope. It was approaching midnight and they still had two thirds of the targeted area to examine. Dean briefly considered if they should split up; they would cover more territory. He couldn't stand the idea of letting Sam wander off by himself. Look what had happened with the Benders in Minnesota. . .

Sam paused and Dean, distracted by his thoughts, bumped right into his roadblock of a brother's back. "What?"

"How about over there?" Sam pointed off to their right, to a small cleared patch of mountainside just visible through an intervening cluster of trees.

"Why not?" Dean stepped off the trail, leading the way to the opened space he could just glimpse between the junipers and occasional red cedars that stood between them and the small clearing. He heard Sam's footsteps behind him. Sam was rusty at avoiding the giveaway forest leaves and tall grasses, Dean thought. He needed to remind Sam that stealth wasn't an inherited Winchester characteristic; it required practice.

Dean quietly stepped through the line of trees and into a small clearing. The land stayed cleared to the mountain's edge on one side, and Dean stepped towards the drop-off, carefully looking down. From his viewpoint, he saw the lighted cabins of Camp Davis sprawled out at least a thousand feet beneath them. Bird's eye view of the camp? Check.

Sam joined him at the edge, gazing downwards, too. "So, this is the place?"

"It's a possibility, at least." Dean turned his back on the view, slowly surveying the rest of the cleared land in front of him, sharp gaze seeking out anything out of the ordinary. He eyed the chunks of rock that stuck out at scattered locations, remembering Sam's lecture on this part of the Rockies being formed or deformed by glaciers in the last Ice Age, with boulders and rock chunks strewed every which way, dropped by the retreating, melting ice. Trust the geekboy to know that.

"Dean," Sam called, "Check it out." He pointed to a red cedar tree, its top visibly towering over the surrounding juniper and piñon pine trees, which seemed to loosely circle the older, taller hardwood tree. Sam started walking towards the ring of trees, stepping past the smaller trees, heading for the thick cedar tree. Dean dogged his footsteps, alert to any danger. As they approached the tree, Dean caught a foul whiff of decaying flesh and he knew what they would find before Sam abruptly veered towards the closest juniper tree.

Dean followed, and caught a glimpse of color against the trunk, almost shrouded by the low-lying limbs of the juniper tree. Sam approached cautiously, bent down and grabbed a branch to push it aside, revealing the seated remains of a decaying body. The remains hadn't been picked over by scavengers, though. Sam backed away from the body hastily, momentarily overcome by the smell. Dean undeniably had more experience with corpses in all states of decomposition, so he carefully crouched down and checked the body. "Not a whole lot left to identify, but it could be Greg. He was wearing a red t-shirt his last day at the camp, right?"

"Yeah," Sam's voice came from slightly behind him, and it sounded distracted. Dean whirled to see what was up with Sam when his brother said quietly, "It's Greg-or what's left of him."

Dean wanted to ask what made Sam so sure when he saw Sam pick up a dark blue backpack from the ground, carelessly left only a few yards away from the body. Dean watched as Sam opened the backpack and reached inside.

Sam withdrew a sketchpad and sighed. He flipped the pad open and started perusing the drawings in the available moonlight. The first pages were more sketches of Camp Davis, including another aerial view. Then there were some nature studies, and a few more sketches of long-vacant, falling apart ranch houses and crude barns. Sam's hands stilled on the final page, a rough sketch of a jackelope.

Dean felt a sudden prickling of tension and knew that the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck.

"Dean!" Sam hissed, jerking his head to their right. Dean carefully turned his head, and saw a jackelope, staring at them from ten yards away.

"Shit." Almost before Dean could curse, the creature morphed upwards, elongating and transforming into an Indian in traditional hunting clothes: buckskin pants, chest painted in what would have been bright colors, but were only slightly darker outlines against his grayed form. The Indian spirit's dark hair was loose, with two eagle feathers braided into his hair. The Indian looked off-center, the right side of his hair whacked off, right ear missing. Dean realized that the jackelope antler stuffed in his pocket was the Indian ghost's missing ear.

That was all he had time to think before a powerful invisible shove knocked him about twenty feet backwards, towards the spirit and away from Sam. Dean instantly tried to regain his feet, as the spirit thundered above him.

"WHERE IS IT?"

Sam started to run towards Dean, when he too was thrown off his feet. Dean watched, stunned as the invisible force threw Sam up against the cedar tree. Dean growled, trying even harder to get off his butt and get to Sam.

"NOT SO FAST! GIVE IT BACK!" the spirit bellowed, and by now Dean was convinced that this was Yellow Beaver, although the spirit had hardly bothered with introductions. Dean noticed too late that the spirit was armed with a hunting bow slung over his shoulder. The Indian unslung the bow, withdrew an arrow from his quiver, fitted the arrow into the bow and let it fly, all within a matter of seconds.

Dean watched in horror as the arrow hit Sam, slicing through his torso, slamming him into the cedar's trunk.

"Sonofabitch!" Dean yelled, rage at the spirit propelling him to his feet. "_Leave my brother alone!_" Dean turned hate-blazed eyes towards the spirit, but it ignored him, walking purposely towards Sam. Dean removed the small weapons duffel from his back, digging for the rock salt and gasoline as he ran towards the spirit.

Dean's eyes frantically sought out his brother. "I'm coming, Sammy!" he shouted when he caught sight of him, sitting slouched over, impaled by the arrow. Dean raced toward Sam, intent on dragging the spirit away.

"No, Dean!" Sam cried out. "Burn the antler!"

SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SNP*

Sam's ears were ringing with the sound of his own scream and Dean's cursing, penetrating past the incredible pain that was emanating from his side. Dimly he realized that he'd been shot with an arrow, as his head reeled at the sight of the fletched arrow end protruding from his left side.

"I'm coming, Sammy!" Dean's determined shout gave Sam the strength to do what had to be done.

"No, Dean!" His fuzzy mind fell back on training. Don't remove the arrow, it ordered in a voice that he labeled _Dad_. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed the arrow with both hands and tried to wrest it from the tree without pulling it from his body. It wouldn't budge. He looked for Dean, saw his older brother coming full throttle to his rescue, but Sam knew that the spirit would reach him first.

"Burn the antler!" Sam only realized how thoroughly he was stuck to the tree when his yanking of the arrow produced nothing but momentarily blinding pain.

"Shit!" Sam cursed. No getting around it, he'd have to risk pulling himself off the arrow. Sam quickly broke off the fletching. He gathered his strength—this was gonna hurt—and forced himself to charge away from the tree, towards Yellow Beaver.

With a wild yell, he lurched from the tree, hearing a sucking sound and feeling white hot white pain flair through his body. Sam plummeted to the ground, falling on hands and knees, breath knocked out of him, taken by the all-consuming pain. Fear forced his head upwards as he frantically looked for the Indian spirit.

"Geronimo!" He heard Dean's yell as a sudden blaze of fire rushed up the Indian spirit, leaving no trace of Yellow Beaver in its wake.

Sam's head fell back towards his chest in weak relief. Next thing he knew, Dean was kneeling by his side, urgently asking, "How bad is it, Sammy?"

"Arrow, not much blood. . . " Sam panted. "It just hurts. . . "

"Shhhhh, I know, Sammy."

Sucks to be skewered, Sam thought hazily, then grunted when Dean shifted him, pulling up his clothes to get to the wound.

"Cold!" he muttered crossly as his tender flesh was exposed to the night air.

"Sorry, Sammy." Dean quickly cleaned the wound with an antiseptic wipe, and then firmly placed a field bandage over it. "Let's get you out of here."

Sam gratefully accepted Dean's hand as his brother tugged him to his feet.

"Lean on me," Dean encouraged, ducking under Sam's arm on his uninjured side and trudging slowly back towards the trail and the Impala.

SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*SPN*

Dean carefully arranged Sam's pillows and the spare one from his own bed, propping him up against the headboard in a more or less seated position. They were waiting for Zephyr to arrive. They had placed an anonymous call to the Sheriff's office about the body on Beaver Mountain, and then Dean had gently broken the news to Zephyr. He knew Sam wanted to see her again, and he wanted to spare Sam the task of telling Zephyr her boyfriend was dead. Dean just didn't know if they should tell Zephyr the complete, supernatural story of Greg's death or stick to the accidental hiking death PG-rated version.

"Your call, Sam. You know her better than I do."

A knock sounded on the door and Dean rose to answer it. "Zephyr. C'mon in." Zephyr walked in and he noticed the puffiness under eyes when she passed him. Dean closed the door, and then trailed after Zephyr as she halted by the foot of Sam's bed.

"Zephyr, thanks for coming," Sam greeted from the bed. "Uh, sorry we don't have a lot of space for visitors. You can sit on Dean's bed," he gestured towards the bed between him and the door, "or at the table, if you prefer." Sam nodded towards the windowed far wall.

Dean settled on his bed as Zephyr walked over to the indicated table. She slipped out of her backpack, placed it on the table and sat. "Dean said you were hurt, I kind of thought that you'd be in the hospital?"

"I loathe hospitals. They patched me up in the ER and released me into Dean's care. I'll be fine."

Dean silently admired Sam's ability to tell mostly honest lies.

Zephyr fiddled with the zipper on her backpack, withdrawing a stuffed animal. "I got you a get well present." She rose and handed Sam a medium-sized stuffed brown bear, stretched out in all four legs, its maker's tag proclaiming it to be 'Silver Dollar Sam.' "It's from the Wort Hotel, they sell them in the gift shop."

Dean had no trouble reading the tag from his perch and grinned. The stuffed bear would actually make a pretty decent car pillow, wedged between the passenger seat and the door.

"Thanks. I've got something for you, too." Sam reached for the drawer in the nightstand between the two beds, and pulled out the red ring box. He handed it to Zephyr, who was still standing next to his bed.

"Actually, it's Greg's. I found it when I searched his cabin and removed it for safekeeping, since you said the cabins are all unlocked."

Zephyr backed into her chair and sat, the ring box clutched in her hand. She took a deep breath and opened it, revealing the diamond and rubies engagement ring. Hesitantly, she touched the ring with her finger, tears glistening in her eyes.

"Greg loved you, Zephyr. You need to remember that," Sam said gently. "I'm sorry for your loss, and I'm sorry that we couldn't find him alive for you."

"You found him, Sam." Zephyr sniffed. "At least I know what happened."

Sam frowned. "Not everything."

Zephyr raised her eyes to meet Sam's, startled.

"I can tell you the whole story, but—it won't change things. You've heard the old saying; sometimes you're better off not knowing?"

"As long as we're quoting, I prefer 'and the truth shall set you free.' " Zephyr's voice was strong and resolute as she snapped the ring box closed and put it on the table.

"Okay. At the hot springs, you said you wanted our help because Becca said we were very open-minded. Do you know why we're so open-minded?"

"No."

"Because we need people to be open-minded about us, and what we do, in return." Sam turned his head so that he was looking Zephyr right in the eye. "Dean and I hunt supernatural creatures—like the Ghostbusters, only for real. Ghosts, spirits, poltergeists, shape shifters, witches—you name it, we hunt it."

Zephyr opened her mouth to protest.

"It was a shape shifter in St. Louis. The shifter took on Zach's form and murdered Emily. We found the shifter's lair in the sewers and there was enough evidence to get the cops to drop the charges against Zach.

"Look, I know this sounds crazy, but it's true. If you don't believe me, you can ask Becca. She tangled with the shifter, personally."

Zephyr bit her lip. "So, the thing that killed Greg was a—shape shifter?"

"No, it was a spirit. The spirit of an Indian warrior and shaman from the late nineteenth century. His name was Yellow Beaver and he was killed by Greg's great-great-great uncle, in 1895."

"How do you know that?"

"Research—and Keith Ferrin said his great-great granddad shot an Indian trying to steal his horses in the 1890's. We figure his spirit's been hanging around Beaver Mountain ever since. It's been mostly quiescent, but it turned violent with Greg. Maybe because the spirit could tell that Greg was a descendent of the man that killed him, or maybe it was angry because Greg shot it."

"Greg shot it?"

"The spirit disguised itself as a jackelope when it wanted to spy on people encroaching on its area. Spirits—especially Indian spirits—can be very protective of their territory. But don't worry. Dean destroyed Yellow Beaver's spirit. It's what we do."

"We do what we do and we shut up about it," Dean quoted Dad's number one rule, startling Zephyr, who looked like she'd forgotten he was even in the room.

"That's what really happened to Greg," Sam said soberly. "We're relying on your discretion that the official cause remains a hiking accident."

"But how do I . . .?"

"Remember Greg—not how he died. He loved you, and that's special."

"Better to have loved and lost . . ." Zephyr sighed. She stood up, reluctantly. "I need to go, I told Marissa I'd be waiting for her in the café. I hope you're feeling better, Sam. And thank you—both of you—for giving me closure." Zephyr grabbed her backpack and Dean escorted her to the door.

He returned to Sam. "Well, that went better than I expected."

"Yeah." Sam shifted restlessly against the pillows.

"Time for a nap," Dean decided, moving over to the head of the bed to remove and readjust the pillows so Sam could lie flat.

"I'm not tired," Sam stubbornly insisted. "Besides, we've got to plan the next hunt, in Casper."

"Whoa, we're not hunting anything until you're one hundred percent. The doctor said you needed at least a week of downtime. So, where do you want to go?" Dean sat on his bed. "Y'wanna go to Palo Alto, visit your friends? Catch up with Becca?"

He waited for Sam's answer with a carefully neutral expression. There was nothing wrong with giving Sam a chance to catch up with his friends. Just because he wanted to visit didn't mean he wanted to stay there . . .

"It's summer time. Becca's home in St. Louis, now. I'll call her later tonight, fill her in." Sam rolled his head towards Dean. "Where do you want to go? Since we seem to be taking the next week off."

"How about Blue Earth? I haven't seen Pastor Jim in over a year, and he might've heard something from Dad."

"Pastor Jim's? That's great . . . I haven't seen him in years—since the last time we spent Christmas in Minnesota."

Dean was startled. "You didn't visit Pastor Jim while you were at Stanford?"

"He offered, plenty of times," Sam said quickly. "And we talked a lot, he even answered my emails." Sam smiled fondly, and Dean remembered that Jim was no fan of the internet. "But—I couldn't stay at Pastor Jim's without you, it would just be wrong. I'd miss you too much," Sam mumbled into his pillow.

Dean watched patiently as Sam fell into sleep. "I missed you, too," he whispered when he was sure Sam couldn't hear him.


End file.
